Rate My Professor Ferdia Gallagher

Professor Ferdia Gallagher is Professor of Translational Imaging and Head of the Department of Radiology in the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He serves as a Cancer Research UK Senior Research Fellow, Honorary Consultant Radiologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and College Lecturer in Medicine at Gonville & Caius College. Gallagher completed his undergraduate medical studies at the University of Cambridge, earning a BA, followed by clinical training at the University of Oxford where he obtained his BM BCh. He trained as a radiologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2005 during a Cancer Research UK and Royal College of Radiologists clinical research training fellowship. He holds fellowships of the Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR) and Royal College of Physicians (FRCP).

Gallagher leads the Clinical Molecular Imaging Group, developing innovative functional and molecular imaging methods, including hyperpolarised carbon-13 MRI and deuterium metabolic imaging, to non-invasively assess tumour metabolism, detect early cancer responses to therapy, and phenotype patients for personalised treatment. His group has pioneered the clinical translation of hyperpolarised 13C-MRI, achieving the first such scans in a European cancer patient. Notable publications include 'Detecting tumor response to treatment using hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy' (Nature Medicine, 2007), 'Hyperpolarized 13C MRI of Tumor Metabolism' (Radiology: Imaging Cancer, 2020), and 'Metabolic imaging across scales reveals distinct prostate cancer phenotypes' (Nature Communications, 2024). He has received the Cancer Research UK Clinician Scientist Fellowship, Senior Research Fellowship, Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Academy MRI Prize (2021), International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Outstanding Teacher Awards (2012 and 2016), Radiological Society of North America Young Investigator in Molecular Imaging Award (2007), and British Institute of Radiology Sir Godfrey Hounsfield Award (2025). Gallagher chairs the Publications Committee of the European Society of Radiology and is a board member of the European Society of Oncological Imaging, contributing significantly to advancing oncological imaging in clinical practice.